Running your small business comes with a wealth of benefits and advantages, but that doesn’t mean it’s always easy. Yes, at the end of the day, you should be able to find great satisfaction in your work, as the large majority of small business owners across the country have.
However, it can be a long road to get there, with a lot of very difficult tasks ahead. If you’re hoping to turn your company profitable, you’ll need to ensure that you are practicing some proper growth strategies.
However, you’ll also want to understand what the riskiest growth strategy for a business is. High risk, high reward, as they say, but you’ll need to decide what you are willing to stomach for your business.
Read on and we’ll walk you through some basics on business growth strategies.
Taking On a New Market
This is a common strategy for many businesses, and something as a consumer you’re likely accustomed to seeing all of the time. A celebrated business is doing well in one market, so they decide to branch out and try their luck in another.
Sometimes, it produces a smash hit and expands a business into the stratosphere. In other instances, the business crash and burns with this new attempt and spends years recovering.
If you’re looking for a classic high-risk growth strategy, this is probably the textbook example. Yes, there’s a big chance for a big reward, but let’s look at all the potential drawbacks.
First and foremost, it takes a lot of time and money to convince a new audience to follow through and accept a new brand in the space. That’s a whole wealth of marketing that needs to be done to educate this new market, get them adjusted to the idea, and get them invested in your product or service.
You’re essentially starting the whole process from scratch.
Underinvestment is a common reason why this strategy tends to fall flat. It cannot be understated how difficult it can be to put a new audience through this education process, but doing so halfway can lead to lots of money spent and no reward in the process.
You also run the risk of diluting your brand name and pulling focus away from your work in the other market.
Again, this strategy is common because there often are some big success stories. But you should still think twice about jumping in with this kind of marketing strategy.
Increasing Current Market Penetration
You couldn’t be blamed for finding the task of opening up to a brand new market a little too risky. However, if you’re looking for growth, you’ll want to put in the effort somewhere else.
This is why many business owners take on the strategy of increasing their current market penetration. While this can be a great strategy, it has to be said that it comes with its own sense of risk.
It makes sense to try and increase sales to the customers that you already currently have a hold on. After all, they are present and have proven to be interested in the products or services that you provide.
However, putting too much pressure on these consumers to buy an ever-increasing amount of product can run the risk of driving these consumers away as opposed to pulling them in.
You’ll need to be very careful in how you decide to pull more sales from the consumers who are already buying from you. If you run a subscription service, for example, will running the price up cause you to lose your audience?
If you keep pushing new products to fans of the clothes you sell, will they get annoyed and turn away?
It all depends on execution, but it’s a risk that is always present and one that needs to be taken seriously.
New Service & New Market
We talked earlier about expanding your current service to a new market, and the risks inherent in that. What about a potentially even riskier move: presenting a brand new product to a brand new market?
It may sound crazy, but businesses are known to do this. In a way, it’s like launching a brand new business under the relatively safer model of an existing one.
It’s like a wine company focused on providing drinks to well-established adults deciding to also release a hard seltzer engineered to please twenty-somethings. It’s a risk, for sure, but it also might pay off in a major way.
Again, the main factor when it comes to taking on this kind of business strategy is marketing. This plan will need to go hand in hand with an amazing marketing strategy, and you’ll need to get your new audience in the palm of your hand.
You can do this by crafting some great marketing ideas and expanding the reach of your influence in this way. You can read more from stomlikes.com if you want to expand your knowledge about basic business marketing efforts.
The bottom line is this is a business strategy worth taking on if you’re feeling bold, but won’t be one for the weak of heart.
Riskiest Growth Strategy for a Business
Looking to strike out and expand your business in a bold way? You’ll want to read the above information about the riskiest growth strategy for a business. Taking on any of these strategies can prove to bring big rewards, but it’ll be up to you if you can stomach the potential losses as well.
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